The story of the Pilbara strike has been told in many different forms over many years now, and those forms can have a profound influence on its content. Most importantly, the ways in which Aboriginal people represent the past tend to differ markedly from those of scholars working in the discipline of history. Many of the stories Aboriginal people have told about the strike belong to an oral tradition in which the meaning and significance of the event in the present, rather than in the past, is of the utmost importance; and, as the needs of the present have changed, the nature of the stories being told has shifted as well. From a European scholarly point of view, these stories, especially when they are rendered in ways that preserve their original idiom or spirit, are invaluable as they reveal much about the ways in which the past, as it is remembered, has both shaped the marrngu sense of self and informed their actions. At the same time, oral histories, told by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, can shed light on the strike itself, since they reveal aspects of it that are barely evident in the contemporary historical record.
Beginnings
It is often assumed that stories are told only after an event or an experience. But stories are often formulated and told beforehand, thereby making possible the actions they describe. In a political context, telling a story can not only help actors forge a plan for action but also constitute a sense of community among those who will execute it. In the case of the strike, Don McLeod and the principal Aboriginal figures constructed a narrative about the Aboriginal people’s oppression and a struggle to free themselves; they told that story repeatedly to the marrngu; and finally they sought to enact that story together. And, once the strike began, telling the story of what happened and was happening was just as important, since a propaganda battle erupted between the opposing sides.
Don McLeod Writes to A.P. Elkin
Prior to the strike, Don McLeod apparently wrote voluminous letters to the writer and Australian Communist Party member Katherine Susannah Prichard who lived in Perth (though these do not seem to have survived) as well as long letters to the anthropologist A.P. Elkin on the other side of the continent (which have survived).
Aboriginal Storytelling at Race-Time Meeting
But the story-telling that took place among the marrngu themselves was probably even more crucial. One of the most important instances of this took place at a meeting that was held during the Port Hedland races in July 1945.
Native Persecution is Denounced: Big Perth Protest
Once the strike began, a fierce propaganda battle began in which the opposing sides gave highly partial accounts of it in order to win public support: on the one hand, the government and the pastoralists told stories in which they sought to minimise the impact of the strike; on the other, the sympathisers of the strike gave the impression of a highly successful industrial action by the Aboriginal people.
Remembering the Strike
The stories that were told at the time of the strike by the strikers themselves and their supporters have had a profound influence on nearly all of the historical accounts that have been told since. This story-telling has several key features. For example, the strike was first planned at a meeting that took place at Skull Springs in 1942; the strike began on 1 May 1946, and nearly all the people walked off the stations that day; there were simply three leaders: Clancy McKenna, Dooley Binbin and Don McLeod; and the Aboriginal strikers held together as a coherent group and never really returned to the stations as workers. These stories might be regarded as myth rather than history, not least because they were told by the marrngu in a similar manner to the one they used to relate many traditional stories about mythical heroes. And, for those who later founded or supported the cooperative, they provided a charter for future action.
Don McLeod, Telling the Story of the Strike
Throughout his long life, Don McLeod told the story of the strike on numerous occasions and in various forms, including at least three oral history interviews, a draft autobiography, a political tract, and a documentary film.
Clancy McKenna Remembers the Strike
Accounts told by participants in the strike can enable us to recover aspects of it that are occluded in the contemporary documentary record.
Kangkushot: The Life of Nyamal Lawman Peter Coppin
In remembering the strike, the strikers dwelled upon certain moments, such as the making of the calendars.
History and Legend
Over time, the strike increasingly became the subject of both history and legend, rather than memory alone. In this process, many accounts tended to be influenced more and more by previous tellings of the story. This process can be described as narrative accrual or narrative coalescence. As this occurred, the story of the strike was increasingly told in a way in which particular people and certain events symbolised what happened.
Cover of Donald Stuart's Yandy
The jacket-cover of Donald Stuart’s documentary novel Yandy featured an oil painting by James Wigley, Don McLeod and his Mob.
McLeod's Mob
The story of the strike and the cooperative movement won even more attention as Aboriginal land rights and self-determination became popular causes in the early 1970s. Journalists increasingly began to write stories about the strike and the cooperative, more often than not focusing on the role that Don McLeod had played.
Scene from Yandy the Play
Since the 1980s, the marrngu have been more able to ensure that their perspectives are foregrounded in the telling of the story of the strike and the cooperative movement.
Commemoration
In recent years, the strike has increasingly become the subject of a considerable amount of commemoration, especially at the time of its 50th and 60th anniversaries. This commemorative work has been performed in a broad range of medium.
Sculpture of Strike in Public Park
In 2006 the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre, based in Port Hedland, released a DVD called 60 Years Old, which principally comprised an eighteen-minute film, ‘Remembering the 1946 Pilbara Indigenous Pastoral Workers’ Strike’.
Clancy & Dooley & Don McLeod Song
The strike has been commemorated further afield than the Pilbara, especially by the left. For example, many unions have commemorated the strike in recent years. In 2010 the singer and song-writer Shane Howard recorded a song Clancy & Dooley & Don McLeod that emphasises the support unions lent the strike.
The 1946 Pilbara Strike Board Game Cover
In recent years, the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre has produced a range of goods for sale that commemorate the strike.
